Samsung Electronics has introduced Knox 2.0, the evolution of Knox, the company’s secure mobile platform service designed to provide data and privacy protection for enterprise users. The new features aim to support IT departments as they implement and manage their BYOD strategies. Knox 2.0 offers a series of core platform security improvements, including TrustZone-Protected Certificate Management, Knox Key Store, real-time protection for system integrity, TrustZone-protected ODE, two-factor biometric authentication, and enhanced generic framework. New features of Knox 2.0 will be commercially available in the second quarter. Once available, previous generation Knox users will be able to upgrade to Knox 2.0 after upgrading to KitKat. Knox 2.0 will also come pre-installed on the newly launched Samsung Galaxy S5.
The TrustZone-Protected Certificate Management is a device-wide feature that generates and maintains client certificates inside Trustzone with additional support for industry standards such as PKCS#11. The capability allows mobile devices to play the role of the smart card and its readers.
The Knox Key Store generates and maintains encryption keys inside the TrustZone protected environment, and allows third parties to utilize encryption for security sensitive applications and makes sure that encrypted data is protected if the system is compromised.
The TrustZone-protected ODE encrypts the data stored in the device through the TrustZone-protected encryption key, which can be disabled at the detection of system integrity compromise. The enhanced generic framework of Knox supports per-app VPN functions for SSL VPN services such as Juniper, F5 and Cisco while previously supporting them only for IPsec VPN.
Knox also offers enhanced container features such as support for most of Android apps from the Google Play Store, and SE Android policy configurations for third party containers, such as Good’s secure container, Fixmo’s SafeZone, MobileIron’s AppConnect.
In addition to the core features of Knox, Samsung has also introduced new cloud based services, Knox EMM and Knox Marketplace, mainly targeted at SMBs.
Samsung is providing various services with Knox, including EMM and Marketplace. EMM provides cloud-based mobile device management, as well as identity and access management (SSO + Directory service) with a set of IT policies to implement company guidelines. Marketplace is a one stop shop for SMBs to find, buy and use Knox and enterprise cloud apps in a unified environment.
Samsung has also expanded its partner ecosystem. Knox now supports SE Android policy configurations for third party containers such as Good’s secure container, Fixmo’s SafeZone, MobileIron’s AppConnect.
By partnering with Microsoft, Knox allows users to join their devices with their company to access company resources and services with Microsoft Workplace Join. The new split-billing feature that separately calculates bills for personal and enterprise apps works by partnering with operators such as 3 Hong Kong Telecommunications.
Knox was initially launched in October 2013. Since then, Samsung reports it has sold over 25 million Knox-enabled devices, and currently has over 1 million active Knox users. On average, 210,000 Knox-enabled devices are being activated per month which is about 7,000 devices per day.
